Dispute over credits for Coldplay song

I would like to take the opportunity to claim that I wrote Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida.” In fact, I wrote “Viva La Vida” just about an hour ago after hearing the news that my pal Yusuf — the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens — feels that the undeniable Coldplay smash is too close for comfort to one section of his “Foreigner Suite” from his 1973 album “The Foreigner.”

Interesting. I couldn’t quite place “The Foreigner” so I went to Lala.com to give it a listen (the most relevant section starts around 3:36). Sure, I can hear the similarity, but I’m not sure it would have jumped out at me or anything. (I’m not even going to listen to “Viva la Vida” again for reference, as much as I love that song, because then it will be stuck on endless loop in my head.)

What do you think? Same song or merely similar in the way that many songs are similar?